Carbon Cycle

[fluid]

What are some future conquences due to human influences on the carbon cycle, i have to write up a project on it....and i feel that i dont have enough info, can comeone help me out wit this

[InfiniteNow]

What do you know/think so far? That would help Hypographers to fill in gaps or compliment your current knowledge.


Cheers.

[UncleAl]

Compare the total documented annual anthropogenic carbon contribution to that of summed natural sources - vulcanism, wetlands, tundra, jungle, forest litter, wildfires, etc. The uncertainty in natural emissions is much larger than the total exquisitely well-documented human contribution. Look it up.

The human contribution is utterly lost in natural noise. The human contribution doesn't matter at all Let's run one small number all by itself: "Alaska fires during 2004 burned over 6.38 million acres."

http://www.nifc.gov/stats/historicalstats.html
Would the government lie?

Let's say the burn averaged 5 grams of fuel/cm^2 - one short small twig. That is way underestimated, but we'll try it out. Through Google, 6.38 million acres = 2.5818944 × 10^14 square centimeters giving 1.3x10^15 grams of fuel. Say 50% carbon by weight to give about 2.4x10^15 grams of CO2 or 2.4 billion metric tonnes of CO2. From one fire. ONE FIRE.

CO2 emission from burning a gallon of gasoline is 19.4 pounds or 8800 grams,

http://www.epa.gov/otaq/climate/420f05001.htm
Would the government lie?

That single Alaska fire - one fire in one year - was equivalent to burning 270 billion gallons of gasoline. The world's total petroleum consumption was 1.1 million bbl/d in 2005,

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/steo/pub/contents.html
Would the government lie?

or (42 gallons/bbl)(1.1x10^6 bbl/day)(365 days) or 17 billion gallons. One single Alaska fire put out more CO2 than the whole world burning petroleum for 15 years.

Human production of CO2 doesn't even show up in the noise of natural CO2 sources. Go ahead, run the numbers yourself. The human contribution is totally invisible

THEY ARE LYING TO YOU It isn't even a good lie. It is crap at face value to anybody who can do arithmetic, hence American Zero-Goal education and Every Child Left Behind.

[InfiniteNow]

Well, that's one POV.

You know Al, I'm tired of you always sitting on the fence with all of your posts. When are you going to form an opinion for a change?


Cheers.

[UncleAl]

You know Al, I'm tired of you always sitting on the fence with all of your posts. When are you going to form an opinion for a change?

I posted the goverment's own numbers and drew the inexorable conclusion from arithmetic. Would you think it a stronger argument if I added a year of wildfires in the American southwest (1000-5000 square miles burned is SOP), annual CO2 emissions from volcanoes of 6.5x10^13 grams/year, and the unfathomably huge quantity of CO2 rising up out of rotting Siberian and Canadian wet tundra? Australia has a fantastic annual wildfire season, as does Indonesia.

Mt. Etna all by itself outputs 13 million tonnes/year of CO2 for its main plume with a similar amount estimated from diffusive emissions. If you want to sequester CO2 emissions, start there. It's all in one place and all going into the atmosphere. Grab that and European Union fuel burning is hardly even decimal places.

If you use sheaves of differential equations rather than arithmetic, you can obtain any politically useful answer at will. The statistically rigorous demo of climate prediction on demand,

http://motls.blogspot.com/2006/05/pr...r-climate.html

THEY ARE LYING TO YOU

[fluid]

well thx for the replys, i ended up gettin 21/22 as my mark, lol i didnt explain green house effect enough....stupid

oh well thx again

[learnin to learn]

Originally Posted by UncleAl

The human contribution is utterly lost in natural noise. The human contribution doesn't matter at all Let's run one small number all by itself: "Alaska fires during 2004 burned over 6.38 million acres."

Uncle Al why do you think that humans do not contribute enough CO2 to matter? I understand your point about forest fires, but we contribute alot more to CO2 emissions than just the burning of petroleum, I mean look at the US north east alone. Do you know how much coal is burned on a daily basis for energy purposes? What about China???? China holds about half of the worlds population and until recently their major source of heat and energy was from burning coal. So wouldn't humans contribute enough to CO2 emissions to matter at least a little bit? I might be mistaken if so plz let me know!!!

[learnin to learn]

l8r

[Eclogite]

Originally Posted by UncleAl

That single Alaska fire - one fire in one year - was equivalent to burning 270 billion gallons of gasoline. The world's total petroleum consumption was 1.1 million bbl/d in 2005,

Your post has to be either the height of intellectual dishonesty or a simple error on your part. Naturally I shall assume it is the latter. I imagine even the most brilliant amongst us can make mistakes from time to time.

The area ravaged by the Alaskan fire will, as is the way with forests ravaged by fire, regenerate. Within a couple of decades tree growth will have absorbed from the air an equivalent volume to that produced by the fire. Only if human intervention prevents this regrowth will this not be the case. All forest fires merely produce a temporary blip in atmospheric carbon dioxide. The global burning of previously sequestered petroleum products delivers a significant long term increase in that level.

[gribbon]

These maps/diagrams show carbon distribution. Interestingly, the concentration of Crabon in the oceans is far higher around the south pole...anyone know why this is?

As you can see, the total amount of Carbon in the oceans is 36,000 Gtc (mostly in the form of bicarbonate ion), in the biosphere there is around 1,900 Gtc, and lastly, around 750 Gtc in the atmosphere. The other diagram below shows this as well.

It is my understanding that even without the changes in climate, increased concentrations of CO2 could have a significant impact on patterns of plant growth worldwide. Changes in CO2 concentration could lead to changing growth patterns, and this environment would allow shrubs (which have a slightly different photosynthetic pathway), to invade and colonise grasslands. Other less commonly heard of effects include the contamination of groundwater due to rising sea levels, and on a more positive note, the increase in the amount of rainfall to the Sahara. (Though some would argue that this is not good, as it will lead to locsut swarms). Other effects include changing migration routes for insects, the blocking of many water flows (such as the gulf stream), and an increase in forest fires. (As welll as more obvious ones such as rising sea levels and dcreasing agricultural output.)

Wikipedia seems to support this:

Effects of global warming - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Diagram showing risks:

Map showing distribution of Carbon in oceans:

Carbon cycle in the atmosphere etc:

Hopefully that was some help...